WPI students dig into research

Courtesy WPI Student Rachel Brown studies dirt samples as part of a search for new phages, viruses that infect bacteria

Write a Comment

By Sam Bonacci

Students from WPI are getting their hands dirty through a new partnership with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI).

HHMI is crowd-sourcing the discovery and characterization of viruses that attack bacteria using dirt samples collected by students from around the country.

"This is real research. There are different ways to approach it, and you don't know what the results are going to be. It not only helps the students learn how research is done, but contributes real data to an important scientific project,” Jill Rulfs, PhD, associate professor and associate head of WPI's Biology and Biotechnology Department, said in a release.

The Science Education Alliance-Phage Hunters Advancing Genomics and Evolutionary Science is calling upon students at over 100 colleges to explore viruses that affect bacteria, called phages. The vast majority of phages have never been isolated or analyzed, according to WPI. The program includes two undergraduate courses at WPI.

If students isolate a novel phage, they get to name the strain and it will be added to the global database for teams of scientists around the world to use. Since 2008, students in the SEA-PHAGES program have isolated and characterized nearly 800 novel phages that infect mycobacterium smegmatis, a bacterial species.

In fiscal year 2013, HHMI invested $727 million in U.S. research and provided $80 million in grants and other support for science education.